Journal of Other Forum Analysis (Volume II, Issue 1)

[benji]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/atlasintel-disapproval-of-trump-is-at-83-for-people-who-didnt-vote-in-2024.1140855/page-8#post-137341845

How best to actually, realistically, tangibly change the system than electing people in positions that give them the levers to do so? You seem to be conflating engaging with the system with perpetuating the system.

Again, with Obama, you're back to simply talking only about presidential elections despite me trying to make you think wider. The speed and ease at which Trump is dismantling the American system and rebuild it as a full-blown fascist state isn't just because he was elected as President. It's because Republicans have been electing and installing MAGA extremists at all levels of governance to wave these changes through.

Now imagine if such a movement had been built around producing the positive change I believe we would both want. Around changing the current system to make it fairer and more democratic, not more hateful and authoritarian. Yes, it would require Democratic leaders to step the fuck up. Yes, it would require organisation. But it would also require people to engage with the current system, with the intent of building a better one.

I don't think you can tangibly separate participation with perpetuation with something as complex as an entire political system, no more than you can make a car a boat if you simply put a naval captain in the passenger's seat. The issue with systems after a certain degree of mass is that they're self-perpetuating as a matter of convenience and bias on part of its participants and the boundaries of its rules and culture.

For example, sure individual police officers aren't all biased, but they've gotta make quota, and it just so happens to be that it's easier to do so in crime-riddled areas, and crime correlates with poverty, and it just so happens that we're a country that has historically denied Black and Brown people the wealth that they actually labored for, so yannooooo... I mean, is that really racist to overpolice these areas?

Putting the "right people" in positions of power doesn't mean much if they are unable to actually engage in materialism like the above and understand the innumerable relationships between the characteristics that make up society and the political system within which it rests. It also doesn't mean much if they aren't actually on my side.

No seriously. People keep saying that they want the same things I want, and I don't think they do. Ultimately, I want the dismantling of Western capitalism and return of full blown autonomy of the Global South to the people who live there so that they can develop their societies on their land how they wish. I fundamentally don't think most people here actually want that. I think they are just fine living in a world of this much inequality, and are only working to ensure that the lucky minorities who live within the borders of the West and are popular enough to galvanize attention and sympathy get access to the spoils of capitalism too.

Again, what do you specifically want?

Is it really that much to ask?